and it is the most pathological shit I have seen in a while. Good god, the answers read somewhere between internalized advertising and an oedipus-complex about a machine.
Hence, I shall cite you some example so you, too, may look into the abyss. If you think some of it is worded with way too much pathos, rest assured that's all in the original comments, too.
"Why do you have an emotional bond with your car?"
There is no goal I cannot achieve with my car [...] I am in my own world. [...] The seat is really comfy.
The car is freedom to me. I can get together some friends and drive around the forests on a sunday.
Like other people like rollercoasters, I like the car for it's speed and acceleration. [...] Other people have touched on the risk part of it, and I like the risk of driving quickly, it's like parajumping. The goal however is not to endanger other people. I am a car enthusiast and I'm not ashamed about it.
For me, the car means getting everywhere quickly. This first started when I turned 18, where I now only needed 15 minutes to get to work. [...] I feel way safer doing 180kph on the Autobahn than on a bicycle, because I have way better control over my car. I will drive my Diesel as long as it's possible, even if it costs 5€/L.
A:Same as OP, I am uncomfortable when people show me their new car and I have to fake enthusiasm about it. I always ask "Is that a 1,4L Engine?". I don't even know what it means.
B: You should ask if it's a 2L, 1,4L is an insult to most cars.
Did your parents never drive across the country with you when you were a child?
I like my car because: it's reliable
I never had one for this long
we have experienced and seen so much together
because it never causes trouble
because it's reliable
because it's comfortable
because it has seats that are better than my couch
because it has a great sound system
because it radiates calmness
because I talk to it sometimes
because it looks great with summer tyres.
I have Kids, 5 at that. The Car is like our second living room.
Freedom. I come from the country and cycling more than 5km was never an option for me.[...] Also Price. I know, difficult topic, especially if you consider all the costs of owning a car. It was still cheaper to get into the next big city in my 90s Fiesta and two friends than it was taking the train.
For me, the car was one of the places I couldn't be disturbed. Music up, I am not allowed to check my phone, I got out of the house.
My car is freedom. For my body and my mind. I leave every day life behind me, no matter if I bomb down the autobahn at 250kph or do 50kph listening to my favorite music while cruising through the countryside
It doesn't matter which car you are comfortable in. A car means independence. I took the train for 5 years while studying, never again.
There's some comments there pointing out how fucked the entire thread is, at least.
EDIT:
They keep coming, folks
There is currently nothing more beautiful than to wash my car on a warm, sunny Sunday. Once everything is perfectly clean and glistening in the sun, I just feel like I have just created Art ;).
[in a thread discussing a general speed limit on the autobahn, suggesting people who want to drive fast hit a racetrack] This is just the typical "gO tO a RaCeTrAcK". So far, there is no speed limit on the Autobahn and once you hit 180kph, every 10kph more is exciting. Sometiomes, someone cuts you off or gets on the autobahn, you just quickly accelerate and get away. That can be enough adrenalin for a day, that's just part of it, you don't need to go to a racetrakc for that. You're not endangering anybody with it, thats just forced scenarios.
I'm a student and I really like my car for the following reasons:
It's the first big investment I bought myself (okay, my Dad helped)
I have to move a lot and the car is the only constant over changing appartements
freedom
When you drove your Golf 2 from Party to Party in 1995, fucked on the hood, the backseats and behind the wheel and always had two friends with you with some cassettes that everybody knew by heart, that drove you to every festival in the area, when you've seen practically every country in west europe and northern africa and spent years with at least one hour a day behind the wheel, you must have a miserable life if you don't have an emotional connection to your car. You get attached to your Appartement, or are you HOMELESS?
A: Why does anybody like bicycles is the question?
OP: It's really hard to kill someone with it, it's quiet, it keeps you fit and it doesn't take up as much space nor pollute the enviroment. Yet it is still individual mobility, faster than being on foot and you don't have parking woes. Oh, and it's fun. Exercise sets free Dopamine.
A: You can kill someone with a bicycle. The risk of being killed is way higher. Fun is something else to me. Driving a car for fast for a long period of time is also exercise (of course only where it's allowed). Motorsport > Cycling.
Okay but like, how does society square the difference between car guys enjoying driving and the monumental cost required to facilitate this? Like the only way outta this is to make it rich people toys and at that point, I'm guessing about 90% of car guys can't afford it anymore anyways.
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Huh, yeah, I can fuck with all car guys become like Ambulance Drivers or whatever.
Its already becoming a rich guys activity. I've got an old mustang being stored at the inlaw's place because I cant afford car rent on top of normal rent. I work on my friends cars because he responds to depression and multiple sick family members with retail therapy. I did buy an old motorcycle so I have something to fix up, which can fit in said friends shed. Being into cars is really the kind of activity that grows to fit the container, money wise. You can get by on the cheap. I don't like going fast, I just like to fix-n-cruise.
I'm not sure that cars will ever be fully replaced in rural areas. The cost for effective public transport in rural areas would be prohibitive and you won't get people to move out of the country side without USSR scale job relocation policy. Even then, someone would have to be in rural areas.
I'm pretty sure to order gasoline would be a specialized service in the future if electric vehicles truly replace them. If gasoline cars are an honest minority of vehicles then emissions aren't much of a worry at that scale anyway.
Also, i'm not trying to be a debate guy right now. I genuinely like to challenge myself a bit with this because I know better, I know cars aren't good in general. But they're also the cure to my constant alienation of labor, a machine I can change with my hands, see the improvement, and enjoy the fruits of the labor.
I agree with this, but the dependency can be lessened a lot.
I mean, I don't know about the rural US to make claims there, the problem here in Germany is once the country was converted to car-centrism, all the infrastructure in the villages died out. There used to be like small shops, a local handyman and whatever which staid afloat by supplying things of need to one village and maybe the few adjacent ones before you hit the next bigger one.
They all fucking died when everybody started driving their car to the retail Supercenters (or worse, clogging up the cities) and just ordered the mechanics for w/e to come in from the city.
Suggest however, that we build a country that isn't as car-centric and all the same people who decry the lack of infrastructure in the countryside will tell you that's impossible.
Again germany specific and probably not to be applied internationally, there is an insane number of train tracks here that are good to go barring cutting down some bushes (allthough, you know, just let the train do it), there is just no service on them because everybody drives their car. And like, 90% of the people in any given village just go to the same city anyways. They're predestined to be serviced by a train line, but as there is no state mandated flexible time and the car is kept cheap by taxes, everybody uses that.
That is a really good point. There were whole economies on a micro scale in rural areas that have been mostly pushed out for the bigger big box mart highway town an hour out. Now the only shops you see in the sticks are tractor dealerships and welders. Things walmart and others cant supply.
A counterpoint to consider is that all of Germany is smaller than Texas. I've done the equivalent of driving from Frankfurt to Berlin and back in a day. Its not unheard of for people in rural areas in the US to need to drive for over an hour to the nearest hospital or shopping center. There's smaller towns in between but your options begin to get very limited.
Overall I would prefer the return of small strong towns that allow for walking or at the very least smaller vehicles like bikes, scooters, little hatches, etc.